It’s the Lunar New Year and I don’t think it’s the time to dwell on the negatives even though there were huge negatives in this competition. In any case, here are a few highlights and we’ll think about the good things.

Mao Asada’s I’ve Got Rhythm

I’m so excited to see her triple axel back! She also did a triple-triple in the long program which was surprising. Mao is getting ready to face her biggest rival at Worlds.

Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir – The Waltz Goes On

I feel like I’m watching a fairy tale unfold here.

Kanako Murakami, Tango

I’m happy to see Kanako’s improved a ton. I hope she keeps this up.

Zijun Li

I saw glimpses of Yuna and Mao at their peak in her in this performance. I hope that puberty sits well with her because this girl has a lot of potential.

Han Yan

Despite the mistakes, this guy’s jumps are HUGE. I hope he improves fast. China may have a fleet of single skaters. I can smell the future nationalism already.

And before I begin, I’m doing this as a bit of a joke but stereotypes and believing in stereotypes aren’t good. In any case, this post exists as a bit of good fun and because I find this clip kind of sweet – the skaters and the story, that is.

Also, it’s February and I’m not in Canada. I can’t believe I’ll be missing Roll Up the Rim for the second year in a row. TT_TT

Can someone send me some Timmy’s doughnuts? And some timbits? I want to make a Priestly!

This post is a little unusual because the featured skater isn’t competing anymore. Angela’s also had some success in the junior ranks and in that sense, she isn’t really an underdog either. I guess Angela is sort of an underdog in that she would have had a tough time competing in the senior ranks but in any case, I wanted to do this post about her.

I first stumbled onto Angela when youtube suggested this video to me:

I was new to skating and so I didn’t really know who Elene Gedevanishvili was (she was operating the camera). What I did notice was that Angela was clearly better than the guy and she had a flair and charisma to her skating that made it difficult to tear your eyes away. She had star quality in spades, like Elizaveta Tuktamysheva.

I have to admit, I quite like the fact that she was using anime soundtracks. Some of the music on these things are super compelling even if their plots are not. I’m kind of hoping someone will use the Ghost in the Shell soundtracks one day.

Inuyasha LP (2008-2009)

Vampire Knight (2009-2010)

She may not have all the technical elements down but she has great personality on the ice. I wish I could’ve seen her improve and grow some more.